The best seat in the house: My thoughts on the Saratoga Beer Summit

Last Saturday, I was afforded the opportunity to help my friends at Remarkable Liquids with their presence at the Saratoga Beer Summit. Showcasing a large amount of locally brewed or distributed beer, the event was held in two sessions at the Saratoga Springs City Center and was well attended. While many of the stories about this event focus on the consumer end of it, which is the part most readers care about, I wanted to talk about my experiences behind the scene, detailing the hard work these brewers and distributers do to make an event like this go off smoothly.

I showed up at the City Center a little more than an hour before the event, and helped Jon from Remarkable Liquids unload kegs and cases from their van, carrying them over a sheer ice and up a precarious ramp behind the building. How much physical stuff setting up an event like this requires is often overlooked. Remarkable Liquids brought somewhere in the realm of 18 cases of beer, around 12 boxes of hard cider, a dozen or so 1/6 kegs, a few ½ kegs, jockey boxes for all of the kegged beers, tubs for ice to hold the canned and bottled beers, and banners to hang up. It was a lot of work hauling it all in, and I didn’t even experience the part where all of it was loaded into the van.

Sweet, delicious Gandhi Bot

Once the tables were set up, the kegs were tapped, and the banners hung, we took our positions and got ready for the first session. My post was behind the jockey box for Dark Horse Brewery from Michigan, and I was pouring two of their beers; their Raspberry Ale and Scotty Karate, their scotch ale. During both sessions, the question we received most frequently was whether or not we were from the brewery. And one of my major criticisms of the Saratoga Beer Summit when I attended it in 2012 was that the vast majority of the beers served came from someone who had no idea what he or she was pouring.

While it disappointed many that we weren’t from the breweries themselves—one guy seemingly shocked that Denmark-based Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø of Evil Twin Brewing wasn’t in Saratoga—we were able to reassure most of them when we explained that we were all working in some capacity for a locally-based distributor who took pains to make sure that the people pouring the beers knew what they were pouring and could answer as many questions as possible. It was also then that I attempted to tell them as much as I could about Remarkable Liquids’ story because they’re the ones responsible for bringing a number of the best beers in the area to Albany.

From behind the taps

One thing that shocked me is that I didn’t really run in to as many drunks as I was expected from the onset. While there were a few glasses broken, and there were a few instances of hall-wide “U! S! A!” chants and random yelling, the only time that I encountered anyone even bordering on wasted was at the end of each session after we had been told to close the taps, when a few people showed me their phones to indicate that it was 3:59 instead of 4:00 and that I should keep pouring because of it. Well, there was also the guy who was really insistent on knowing the Plato of Scotty Karate, so I guess there was one.

As far as standout products, Remarkable Liquids had Rushing Duck’s War Elephant and New England’s Gandhi-Bot, two of the best DIPAs available in this area, but what shocked me the most was the cider from the folks at Nine Pin Cider. It was some of the best cider I’ve ever had in my life, crisp and clean and hugely drinkable. Their grand opening is this coming Friday, so you should check it out if you like cider at all.

Everyone having a good time

Overall, it was a great experience that showed me not only how much work goes into a festival, but how much love the guys at Remarkable Liquids have for their product. I want to thank Jared Kingsley for inviting me to volunteer, and I’d like to thank the rest of the Remarkable Liquids crew for making me feel welcomed. Make sure to check Remarkable Liquids out on Facebook, and to keep looking for more beers that they bring into the area.